


Computer Keyboards Make for Uncomfortable Pillows

by zenonaa



Series: TogaFuka Week 2015 [5]
Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, Togafuka Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 15:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4310307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yeah, she’s always making me do stuff even when it’s dead boring.” Syo rolled her eyes and realised she was talking faster than usual. Not that she slowed her pace upon realising. “Sometimes I even have to feed her. Can you imagine that? Going to school was a complete nose fart too. That’s why I tried to let Gloomy do all that crap.”</p><p>Genocider Syo has a talk with Togami.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Computer Keyboards Make for Uncomfortable Pillows

Computer keyboards made for uncomfortable pillows yet when Genocider Syo opened her eyes and straightened up, shaking her head as if to dislodge her pounding headache, she realised she had been using one as a pillow. Syo pivoted around in the swivel chair that she woke up on and surveyed the room. From the interior, she deduced that she was in someone’s study. It certainly met the criteria of a study. Shelves. Books. Desk. Desk lamp. File cabinets. Computer. A mug with a disc of black coffee at the base. Oppressive air. The oppressive air earned it bonus points.

Now that she was more awake, she needed to figure out where exactly she had woken up and why. To do this, she leaped to her feet and marched over to the curtained window on the far side of the room, careful to avoid the many piles of books along the way. She didn’t know anyone who owned such a vast number of books other than Touko Fukawa.

Perhaps if the owner was still alive by the end of the visit, she could introduce them.

Syo drew the curtains apart and the two halves crackled as they staggered along the railing. Pale light bled in through the glass panes, hinting at morning. She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on how cold the room felt, listening to the disembodied tweet of a lone bird, and when she opened her eyes again, she estimated it to be late morning in early summer. A few months then.

That still didn’t tell her where she woke up or why. Honestly, she wasn’t supposed to be the one who arose from an unconscious state to find herself in a stranger’s house. Syo turned back to the rest of the room. Some kind of identification had to be lying around somewhere so she started to explore.

Whoever owned this study had expensive taste, going by its elegant decor and sleek mahogany furnishing. It had been positively ages since she last intruded into another person’s living quarters like this, sneaking around, and it brought back fond memories and added a spring to her step. Working out the mystery of where she woke up was a nice change of pace. Why, she almost felt like the detectives who investigated her crime scenes after she committed a murder.

The more she threaded through the large quantity of books scattered everywhere, though, the more familiar the room seemed to her. Syo knew she had never visited this place before because she would have remembered, and she didn’t recognise the shape of the room or the wallpaper enclosing it. What she did recognise was the pattern with which the books were all arranged in, and she frowned as she approached the desk. She set her hand down flat against the surface and spotted a silver ring on her left hand.

“Hm,” went Syo, in thought, the noise vibrating through her long tongue and beading at the tip. Her eyes drifted over to the computer on the desk and she seized the mouse with one hand. Syo wiggled it until the computer roused. Even if it locked her out of the active user, she might have been able to see a name on the screen.

A name appeared: Touko.

Just what Syo had begun to suspect. She clicked on the password input box and typed in ‘Byakuya Togami’. The computer told her that she entered the password incorrectly. This time, she typed everything in lower case. Then as one word. Again and again, the computer snubbed her, and feeling her face grow hotter, Syo typed in whatever came to mind. Byakuya-sama. Darling. White Knight. Kameko. Komaru. Komaru Naegi. Omaru. Genocider Syo. All wrong. A growl escaped her throat and she punched the keyboard. That wasn’t the right password either.

She clenched her jaw and thrust her hand down her body, only to find that the holster of scissors that she usually wore on her right thigh was gone. It was now that she realised she had no idea how much time elapsed since she was last in control. Fortunately, a calendar was pinned to the noticeboard above the desk. Her guess of it being early summer proved correct as it was the beginning of June though she had got the year wrong, and her eyes widened at the four digit number in the bottom corner.

Two years had passed. Two entire years.

Syo hit the keyboard again. She spun around and didn’t bother to weave through the books on her way out of the room. In fact, she purposely kicked at them, collapsing towers and treading on the debris. Her narrowed eyes blurred her vision so when she flung open the door and stormed into the living room, everything looked engulfed in smoky fire. The entirety of her body shook as she dragged her feet across the carpet, fingers twitching, wanting to tear up everything. No, she wanted to cut up everything, but she couldn’t cut up everything because she didn't know where Touko hid her scissors.

As she stumbled toward an armchair by the fireplace, swaying and zigzagging all of the way, the headache that she woke up with intensified. Syo reached the armchair and teetered on the spot, light-headed, and then flumped backward onto the seat cushion. Panting loudly, she forced a hand to her face and wiped her palm up it, eyes scrunched shut. When the throbbing sensation dwindled, she opened her eyes again.

Several seconds crawled by. The haze in her vision started to dissipate. A framed photograph hung beside a television mounted onto the wall, and the details in the picture began to grow more defined. Less shapeless. Syo focused on it while she tried to steady her breathing. Two people were in the photograph. One had braids. Touko. Next to her, the other person, someone taller, was in a suit. Byakuya. With his arm around Touko’s waist.

She pushed her glasses into place and held her breath, waiting to see if he morphed into someone else. He didn’t.

Two years. Two entire years. Each pang in her head denoted the passage of time.

* * *

A door creaked open elsewhere in the house. It sounded like the front door, and then someone walked inside. Syo remained seated, motionless, letting their footsteps find their way to her rather than the other way around.

“Touko?” Byakuya’s voice rang out, louder than the thumping in her head. “Where are you?”

His footsteps found their way to the door of the living room. Then closer. Closer. Ideally, Syo would have been smoking a pipe by the fire while she waited for him to arrive, but she hadn’t managed to find one. That would have been pretty funny, if she had been smoking a pipe. Oh well. Once Syo decided his footsteps were near enough, she twisted around and smiled up at him.

Byakuya froze. He stared at her.

Syo rested her chin in her hands and lengthened her smile. Her heart fluttered at the sight of his face. How she adored that sexy face of his.

“You,” said Byakuya quietly.

“You who?” she asked. She tilted her head to one side.

“Genocider Syo.”

“Ding, ding! Right answer. Just what I expected from my white knight. Geez, I didn’t even say anything and you already knew.” Syo straightened up and threw her head back, laughing despite how it worsened her headache. Not once did she take her eyes off him.

Byakuya’s shoulders sank.

“With a face like that, I’ll have to start calling you Gloomy,” Syo remarked. She prodded her fingers into her cheeks, childishly squashing her face a bit.

“It’s been a while.” He folded his arms over his chest and turned his head away.

“Sure has,” said Syo, and she dropped her hands from her face. She held onto the top of the armchair with one hand and playfully swung her other hand to one side in a fist, moving it horizontally across her chest. “Two years to be precise. Where does the time go, huh?”

He didn’t even make eye contact.

“Seriously,” she said, as he seemed to think that she didn’t want a response. She furrowed her brow. “Where the hell did it go?”

Byakuya looked at her properly. “Fukawa has become better at controlling when you and her switch over.”

“That’s great but there’s just one thing,” said Syo with an edge of hostility. “I’ve been dormant for two fucking years. If you’re trying to kill me or something, that’s a real outdated end goal. Come on, darling, you’re smarter than that. I swore I’d quit expanding my wikipedia article. Next you’ll be telling me I have Multiple Personality Disorder.”

“Reintegration into a single state isn’t specifically what we’re aiming for, no,” Byakuya replied. “Definitely not the kind where you are 'killed' off. You and Fukawa need to be able to work to-”

“We’re aiming for? Fukawa?” Syo pretended her hand was the mouth of a sock puppet and tapped her thumb against her fingers. “Cut the crap, Byak. I heard you call out ‘Touko’ when you came in.”

“... Fine,” he said stiffly. “You and Touko need to be able to coexist. The aim is to have you be able to work together while ensuring the safety of her... of both of you, whether that means with reintegration or by improving your relationship. That doesn’t necessarily mean either of you have to disappear.”

“So why haven’t I been out for two years then? That doesn’t sound like improving our relationship or coexisting or working together or trying to make me not disappear.” Syo stopped counting along her fingers. “Yep, that’s all of them, I reckon.”

Byakuya didn’t answer immediately.

“It’s not something I know in enough detail to give a proper answer to,” he said.

“Eh? Hasn’t your darling Touko told you after all this time?”

Syo spat when she said ‘Touko’.

He stayed quiet.

“Do you want me to disappear?” asked Syo, almost, nearly not wanting to hear the answer.

“No,” he said with perfect timing.

She relaxed and showed teeth in a revitalized grin. “Aw, is that a love confession? I’ll take it either way, Tsunderekuya-sama. So what’s with you and Gloomy anyway, huh? You been mattress mashing while I was snoozing?”

His face said it all but he answered anyway.

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that,” mumbled Byakuya. He put his hand over his mouth and looked away.

Syo burst out laughing even though it wasn’t that funny. “God, you’ve been up to naughty things and you still act like a virgin! That’s my Byakuya-sama! I’m pissed that you haven’t been doing it with me but you and Gloomy, huh? I’ll allow it! Seeing as you seem to actually love her or some shit like that. Don’t ya know, I have her best interests at heart?”

He was lucky that she loved him so damn much, that she didn’t want to cut him like his words cut her, and that she would be fine with a relationship not purely physical. Physical didn’t even need to come into it. Imagine that, her being satisfied with a thing like that. Huh.

“... Would you happen to know why Touko switched out to you?” he asked, face slightly pink.

“Eh? Ah, well.” Syo waved her hand. “You know what Gloomy’s like. Stretching and stretching until...”

She touched her thumbs to the pads of her index fingers and pushed her hands together for a moment. Then, slowly, Syo separated her hands, and she splayed out her fingers as she mimed her fists exploding, and she mouthed, ‘ka-boom.’

“... until out I pop,” said Syo.

“I see,” said Byakuya. He gave a small cough into his hand. “She has a deadline coming up so that must be why you’re here. The workload overwhelmed her.”

“Yeah, she’s always making me do stuff even when it’s dead boring.” Syo rolled her eyes and realised she was talking faster than usual. Not that she slowed her pace upon realising. “Sometimes I even have to feed her. Can you imagine that? Going to school was a complete nose fart too. That’s why I tried to let Gloomy do all that crap.”

Byakuya nodded.

Syo clapped her hands together. The volume of doing so made her cringe. “This is nowhere near as sexy as I planned but oh well. I think I’ll be off... I’ve got a serial killer headache, you know. Toodles! Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out... that’s my job!”

“Wait,” said Byakuya. He reached out a hand instinctively. “One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

His hand fell. “... Thank you for protecting her.”

She looked down and cupped her hand around the back of her neck, scratching lightly. Of all the compliments and congratulations that he could have given her, she hadn’t anticipated this. It felt like her heart was walking across a tightrope or something equally sappy, and only Byakuya Togami could ever induce a sensation like that.

“Someone had to do it,” she said. “Gloomy’s like the subject of a sentence being acted upon by something else. Me?” She winked. “Not a ‘was’ to be found. You better take care of her because if you don’t... Snip!”

If she had scissors, she would have opened and shut them, but she didn’t so she motioned with her fingers instead.

“Touko is capable of protecting herself now,” Byakuya replied.

“Yeah, I figured,” said Syo. “I must be rubbing off on her.”

“As for your other instruction, I will take care of her.”

“Good. I know you’re telling the truth because you don’t have a sense of humour,” Syo said, laughing again, and she shut her eyes.

Her headache vanished. 


End file.
